Many companies think that disaster recovery and business continuity plans are one and the same. Learn the difference and why both plans are needed.

Differences between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans

Tornados, hurricanes, fires, floods, and other natural disasters can destroy a business. Digital disasters like ransomware attacks can be just as deadly.

To stay in business after a disaster, you need to recover from the damage caused by the disaster (disaster recovery) while continuing to provide customers with your product or service (business continuity). Disaster recovery and business continuity plans provide the roadmaps for doing so.

Disaster Recovery Plans

These provide for crucial infrastructures and systems to run again after various types of catastrophes. Restoring the IT infrastructure is a large part of disaster recovery in most businesses. There often are other types of infrastructures and systems that need to be discussed, depending on the nature of a business. For example, if a company’s manufacturing process relies heavily on water, the plumbing infrastructure needs to be addressed.  Besides identifying who should do what after a calamity occurs, the disaster recovery plan should also identify what has to be done to prepare for disasters. For instance, it should mandate that data and systems be regularly backed up and backups stored in several locations, including offsite location(s).

Business Continuity Plans

These should cover how to restore business operations in the event of a disaster. A business impact analysis can help prioritize which business operations to restore first.  Business continuity plans also need to indicate the recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for the business operations. The RTO is the maximum tolerable length of time an operation can be down after a catastrophe, whereas RPO is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss (e.g., transactions) after a disaster, as measured in terms of time. Realistic objectives need to be set in the business continuity plan, as the disaster recovery plan needs to detail how the objectives will be met.  We at CopperTree Solutions can assist you with these important plans.

Need help with your company’s IT planning & cyber protection?  Let us help get you started with IT planning items to consider and how IT Services can assist.

Serving clients large and small, in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Stratford & surrounding areas.

Call 519-804-2461 or mailto:Colin.Shantz@ctsol.ca